


I Hoped I'd Find You Here

by FeastofStarlight



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Consort Kylo Ren, Emperor Hux, Hold me like you did by the lake at Naboo, M/M, Sadness and scenery, don't know where this came from but I had to get it out, sort of happy ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:33:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6695539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeastofStarlight/pseuds/FeastofStarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Citizens everywhere knew the tale of Emperor Hux, who rose from the ruins of the Galactic Empire to command the greatest military machine the galaxy had seen. Who assumed power and ruled the known reaches of space with unflinching order and justice. Of his loyal Knight, Lord Ren, who executed his orders with brutal precision.</p><p>The truth of it was lost to time, as all things are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hoped I'd Find You Here

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in years, but I had to get this story out of my head. Sorry. 
> 
> (no beta)

“I remember when you found this place.”

 

The Emperor allows himself a rare smile. He doesn’t need to look back to know that Ren now stands behind him. As he always had.

 

“I hoped I’d find you here.”

 

Hux tries not to notice the tremor in his own voice, racked by loss and old age, as he gazes out over the lake. He stands on the open terrace of one of the Emperor’s many summer palaces, unique from the others in that it was a well-kept secret. Only his most trusted advisors knew of its existence. The house has stunning, panoramic views over the lakes and mountains of Naboo. Its foundations were built on sacred ground, as determined by Ren, whose grandparents had been married here in secret. Ren had loved the parallel – that a powerful force user and his royal lover were secretly wedded here, as Anakin and Padme had been almost sixty years earlier. Hux would never admit that he too was moved by the poetic nature of it – it had felt like history repeating itself. Improving itself.

 

“I’ve always been here.”

 

Hux hopes that Ren has the good grace not to comment on the tears rolling gently down his cheeks. A breeze whispers across the lake and caresses his greying hair, moving through the fine purple silk of his cloak where it hangs from his thinning frame.

 

“You look different.”

 

Hux barks a bitter laugh.

 

“Ha, yes. The inevitable passage of time has not been so kind to us all.”

 

He feels Ren’s desperate need to reach out and touch him. But he doesn’t. He never does.

 

“You’re still so beautiful,” he says instead. “I’ve missed so much.”

 

Hux feels Ren’s pain as if it were his own, and the shock of it after all this time almost draws a gasp from him.

 

“I’m so sorry Hux. I should have been there. For everything. For you.”

 

The tears now flow freely, dripping onto the white satin of the Imperial regalia. Hux trembles.

 

“You’re here now,” he whispers. “I’d forgive you anything Ren. Force knows I already have. You must know that.”

 

He feels the guilt and pain rolling off Ren, crashing over him and surrounding him, engulfing him. When he can stand it no longer, Hux finally turns to face him.

 

Dark and intense eyes meet his, painful in their familiarity. How many of Hux’s most treasured memories featured those beautiful eyes gazing reverently at him? There’s a soft, plush mouth, quivering slightly under his gaze. He remembers how it felt on his skin, his hair, his own lips. The constellation of moles and marks. The faded yet jagged scar. The perfectly messy hair, which doesn’t move in the persistent breeze.

 

None of it moves. Not really. Not any more.

 

“You look just like I remember you.” The voice of an Emperor, a voice that had echoed across the galaxy bringing destruction and perfect order in its wake, now trembles and cracks under the weight of his heartbreak.

 

Ren’s form flickers slightly, the sheer ghostly blue doing nothing to distract from his beauty. Hux wants nothing more than to reach out and touch him. Knowing that he can’t feels like a physical blow, one that his frail old body can’t take. Not now.

 

“Like a traitor?”

 

“No,” Hux growls, barely stopping himself from stepping forward and grabbing the intangible lapels of Ren’s robes. “No never that.”

 

Ren’s eyes well up. Hux wonders how a ghost can cry.

 

“Like the man I love,” Hux continues. “Which is who you are, who you’ll always be.”

 

“Hux-“

 

“No, Ren. Just be him for me now. Please.”

 

Hux tries not to falter under Ren’s gaze, as tiredness seeps into his bones, the sickness that ails him making its presence known again.

 

“You’re dying,” the ghost whispers, and Hux wonders what will happen when those ghostly tears fall.

 

“I’ve been dying since the day you left me, Ren. This is just my body catching up.”

 

Hux thinks he hears a whimper. But it may have been the breeze. He can see spots at the edge of his vision. But they don’t distract him from the face of his lover.

 

“You came here to die.”

 

“I came here to see you. I fear I won’t get to in death.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“No. I don’t. But I rather think it’s the truth. What was it you called me once? As force-sensitive as a bantha?”

 

Ren smiles at that, and Hux feels his heart clench at the sight of it, sad though it is.

 

“I think I said rathtar.”

 

“Ah, a far more fitting comparison I’m sure.”

 

They lapse into comfortable silence, content to stare at one another as the breeze picks up slowly. Hux feels the urge to fall down and sleep gnawing at the edges of his consciousness. He knows he doesn’t have long now.

 

“Will you be there?” he whispers, knowing his weak voice is lost on the wind, but knowing also that Ren hears it as surely as if it were his own.

 

The Knight seems to hesitate, his large eyes fluttering, lips trembling.

 

“You said you’d forgive me anything?”

 

Hux hums his assent.

 

“Then yes, I think maybe I will.”

 

The last thing Emperor Hux sees is the small smile that graces Ren’s lips as he says this, ghostly tears finally falling.

 

\-----

 

There were tales told across time and space about Emperor Hux and his Knight. Although the Imperial Order outlived them both, their story outlived even the galaxy’s most stable and long-lasting regime.

 

Citizens everywhere knew the tale of Emperor Hux, who rose from the ruins of the Galactic Empire to command the greatest military machine the galaxy had seen. Who assumed power and ruled the known reaches of space with unflinching order and justice. Of his loyal Knight, Lord Ren, who executed his orders with brutal precision.

 

All knew the tale of how Lord Ren turned against his Emperor in the only attempted coup the Order ever saw.

 

The story, however, varied where it was told. Some spoke of how Kylo Ren, consumed by guilt in the face of the Emperor’s tyranny, followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and turned on his master in an attempt to right his own wrongs. Others told of how the Emperor was betrayed by an unstable, jealous, and violent warrior whose death at the Emperor’s own hand was truly just. There were whispers of the involvement of a powerful dark lord, unable to be killed, controlling Ren from the shadows even after his presumed demise. There were whispers even about a lovers’ quarrel, a relationship poisoned by absolute power.

 

The truth of it was lost to time, as all things are.

 

The spot by the lake at Naboo remained a sacred ground, containing more history than anyone would ever know. Sometimes, when the wind picked up and fluttered across the water’s surface, there could be seen in a shimmering blue the figure of two young men, locked in a lover’s embrace.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/criticisms welcome!


End file.
